


in nocte consiliam

by oxymoronic



Series: Yuletide Fics [1]
Category: Bartimaeus - Jonathan Stroud
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Bombs, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen or Pre-Slash, M/M, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-25
Updated: 2019-11-25
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:48:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21539251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oxymoronic/pseuds/oxymoronic
Summary: London, 2003. Britain is on the brink of war, and someone is trying rather hard to kill John Mandrake.
Relationships: Bartimaeus & Nathaniel (Bartimaeus), Bartimaeus/Nathaniel (Bartimaeus)
Series: Yuletide Fics [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2148807
Comments: 4
Kudos: 59
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	in nocte consiliam

**Author's Note:**

  * For [callunavulgari](https://archiveofourown.org/users/callunavulgari/gifts).



> **to callunavulgari** : happy Yuletide!!! i'm afraid this is the only one of your fandoms i was familiar with. i tried to give you something down the lines of your second request, i.e. something betweeen TGE and PG that explores the breakdown of N&B's friendship. i wrote it to be hella gay but you could read it as Nathaniel just freaking out about his fondness for Bartimaeus if you'd prefer. i do hope you enjoy!
> 
>  **re content warning** : people are trying to kill Nathaniel by chucking bombs at him. i don't linger on the explosions themselves or dwell on the aftermath, but i will warn that the anarchists aren't exactly aiming to walk out alive, hence the warning. it really isn't that intense - i'm just being overcautious.

The air outside is sharp and bright, stinging like broken glass against the skin. Earlier in the day, the great city of London was covered with the sheen of a November mist; but this has long since slunk away, bearing its rooftops to the full force of the winter chill. In a quiet little square, perhaps half a mile from Westminster, a sleek black car is waiting.

John Mandrake steps out of his buttercup-yellow house and peers into the gloom. He descends the steps, one hand skimming the balustrade, and pauses as a sharp-suited man opens the door. He hesitates for a moment, glancing left and right as if nervous, and then climbs in.

The car explodes. Molten metal spews across the square like macabre fireworks, setting, amongst other sundries, his neighbour’s prize rosebush aflame. Watching carefully from the safety of his study, Nathaniel huffs under his breath, flops down onto the window-seat and says, “Oh, for heaven’s sake.”

“They weren’t lying, then,” Bartimaeus says cheerfully, balanced on the ledge next to him and admiring the spreading blaze.

Nathaniel scowls. “Clearly not.” He drags himself up onto his feet, knocking non-existent creases out of his suit. It’s the best in his arsenal; he had it made a month ago with the night’s event in mind. It’s already hanging a little higher on his ankles than it should.

“You’re reacting splendidly for someone who just almost kicked the bucket,” Bartimaeus says. “I’m almost impressed.”

“It’s hardly the first time,” Nathaniel mutters, crossing to use the telephone perched at the edge of his desk.

The word from Westminster is not good. The unfortunate lackey currently saddled by Farrar with overseeing the Night Police informs him that Nathaniel is under absolute, unavoidable, incontrovertible orders to stay where he is. Nathaniel tells him where he can stick his orders, but admittedly only once he’s hung up the phone. A pair of squat, heavily-padded leather armchairs broodingly flanks the fireplace; Nathaniel drops into the closest one and stares sourly into the flames.

“Well,” Bartimaeus says, breezing across the room to perch cross-legged in the other. “While we’re stuck here we might as well have some fun.”

Nathaniel’s scowl deepens. “I’m not in the mood for games.”

“That’s because you’re an uptight stick-in-the-mud,” Bartimaeus says cheerily.

Nathaniel rankles. Fully aware of the folly, he takes the bait. “What’s a demon’s idea of a game, anyhow? Juggling the severed heads of their enemies?”

“Well, there _was_ this time in Uruk – ” He catches sight of Nathaniel’s expression and backtracks. “Alright, fine. How about, I’ll tell you anything you want to know if you let me ask you a question in return. Come on,” he wheedles when Nathaniel remains unconvinced. “Truths of the universe can be revealed here. And it’s not like you can tell me anything more important than what I already know,” he concludes with a meaningful and ridiculous waggle of his eyebrows.

Impatience and curiosity get the better of him. “Alright,” he agrees, staring dolefully at the ceiling. “But don’t get clever. My work is off limits.” He thinks for a moment. “Can djinn see the future?”

“Nope,” Bartimaeus says brightly. “Lots of us have claimed to, but it’s all rubbish. Why did you pick me?”

Nathaniel frowns. “Sorry?”

“When you first summoned me,” Bartimaeus explains, overly slowly. “Back when you were a tiny pile of grease and snot with a ridiculous haircut – ” He pauses to look him over. “Well, I say when.”

Nathaniel ignores the dig. “I don’t remember, really,” he admits. “There was a book with a list of names in Underwood’s library.”

Bartimaeus looks mildly affronted; Nathaniel wonders whether he’d expected something more grandiose. “Shame it wasn’t some other poor bastard,” he mutters. “They’d have devoured you at once and saved us all a whole lot of bother. Ask me something else.”

Nathaniel traces the twirling lines of the ceiling’s plasterwork with his eyes, thinking. “What do you do in the Other Place?”

He almost instantly regrets it; Bartimaeus makes a big show of harrumphing, folding his arms and rolling his eyes. “See, that’s the problem with you humans. Always doing, never being. You throw a strop every time we’re in a traffic jam. The Other Place would blow your puny mind. My turn. When will you dismiss me?”

Nathaniel flinches. This is what it’s all been about, he realises with a hot burst of disappointment. He bites the inside of his cheek. “When I can spare you,” he says, forcing his voice level.

Bartimaeus groans. “Come on, you practically sent Ashurbanipal for a fortnight in the Maldives last month. My essence _aches_.”

Nathaniel glowers at him. “I should’ve known this was all some ploy to nag me.”

“Look, as much as I’m flattered to have the privilege of floating around as some kind of confidant, it’s hardly a fitting use of my inimitable skillset,” Bartimaeus says. “If you want someone to mope to, get yourself a girlfriend. That Jane Farrar is very pretty. Terrifying, but pretty.”

This cuts something a little too close to the core. “There isn’t anyone else,” Nathaniel says tightly, still staring into the flames.

“Come on, you’re not _that_ ugly.”

“There isn’t anyone I can trust,” he clarifies with a glare.

Bartimaeus shrugs. “That’s why your lot invented brothels.”

Nathaniel finds the very idea repulsive; his nose wrinkles. “They’re degrading,” he mutters, feeling his cheeks heat. “It’s inhuman.”

“Quite literally, sometimes,” Bartimaeus agrees cheerfully. “You’d be surprised what some people are into.”

“Besides,” Nathaniel adds, ignoring him. “They’d betray me for the right money.”

“I’d betray you too,” Bartimaeus retorts.

Nathaniel scowls. He finds himself wondering if Bartimaeus has ever been put to work in a pleasure-house; the thought makes him somehow queasy. He supposes it’s the forcefulness of it. He imagines no djinni has ever willingly pleasured a magician; he isn’t even sure djinn can feel pleasure. “I don’t see how you’d understand. Hatred and betrayal seem to come as easy to you lot as pigs to muck. Are you even capable of love or loyalty?”

Bartimaeus visibly reels. If he didn’t know better, Nathaniel would say he was hurt. His eyes narrow. “Yes,” he says, after a pause. “We can love.”

Nathaniel frowns. He’d spoken strangely, as if the certainty was laced with sincerity, but the look on his face suggested he was teasing. “Are you sure?”

Bartimaeus doesn’t answer, staring moodily off into the fire in a manner which seems intended to tell him to bugger off; game over, Nathaniel supposes, and fetches down a volume of Woudhuysen’s Miscellany to cross-reference with a Coptic text, pulling close his reading-stand so that he can stay settled near the warmth. The fuzz of the fire and the fuss of the day rush up to meet him, and it isn’t long before he’s dozing, dreaming vaguely of silk and lace and a twining spire of vine going up in flames.

The clock on the mantle chimes shrilly; all of a sudden it’s turned three. Nathaniel jolts up, looks around for Bartimaeus, finds him conferring quietly with an imp over by the open window. As always the sight brings to Nathaniel a little burst of fear. “Just an update from the Tower,” Bartimaeus explains when he spots him stirring. “They say they’ve found someone.”

Meaning they’ve locked up whomever they reckon is leading the pro-American movement this week, Nathaniel thinks a little sourly. He huffs out a sigh, rubs some of the sleep out of his eyes with a grimace. He should get into his real bed; but it’s only a few hours until he’ll be setting out to Whitehall again. Perhaps he won’t bother.

Bartimaeus shuts the window as the imp zips off into the night. The fire’s burnt lower, humming in the grate, but the moonlight silhouettes his profile handsomely. The smooth skin, ageless brow, those bottomless, inhuman eyes. It stirs something unnameable, deep down in Nathaniel’s chest. Something possessive, desiring, impulsive. Something so enormous he can hardly breathe around it.

 _I’d betray you too_ , he thinks, and looks away.

“You should get some kip,” Bartimaeus says, oblivious, walking back over and dropping into the creaky leather chair. “Goodness knows you need your beauty sleep. I’ll wake you if there’s any more news.”

Nathaniel shakes his head. “You’re right,” he says quietly, raising a hand. “I’ve kept you here far too long.”

Nathaniel sits alone in the high-backed chair, watching as the moonlight fades and the sun’s cold rays creep along the carpeted floor. By the time the servant with his breakfast comes to tend the fire, Nathaniel is at his desk, volumes spread akimbo and pen scribbling away.

* * *

Bartimaeus doesn’t hold back on the theatrics. Icicles shiver their way into existence on the ceiling, hanging low enough in places to brush the floor at the tips. The windows rattle threateningly in their frames like chattering teeth. “What is your will?” a voice intones, resonating from shrill to treacle-thick all at once; then, quite suddenly, Bartimaeus notices who it is occupying the other pentacle and all his efforts screech to a halt. Wearing Kitty’s guise and standing with his arms crossed, Bartimaeus swears at him profusely in what Nathaniel thinks might be ancient Sumerian, fully accompanied by hand gestures. “It’s not been five bloody minutes, you realise,” Bartimaeus eventually says.

“I hadn’t planned on it,” Nathaniel mutters sourly. “Bartimaeus, I charge you with – ”

“You’re hurt,” Bartimaeus interrupts, eyes narrowed.

“What?” Nathaniel looks down. He’s still leaning on an elegant ebony cane, inlaid with delicate patterns of twirling ivory, albeit a little less heavily than he was the week before. “Oh. Yes.” It’s probably, he realises vaguely, the first time he’s ever faced death without Bartimaeus at his side. “Bartimaeus,” he begins again, “I charge you with – ”

“Aren’t you going to tell me what happened?”

Nathaniel’s jaw snaps shut. “What, so you can make notes? It was another bomb, that’s all. I just wasn’t as lucky this time.” It’s possible whoever chucked the wretched thing wasn’t even aiming at him; he’d been stood among a gaggle of ministers on the wide pavement of Whitehall, chatting semi-amiably as they waited for their cars to arrive.

“Bartimaeus,” he continues, glaring across the room and daring him to interrupt again, “I charge you with my protection.”

Bartimaeus’ eyes glitter in the low, sloping light from the streetlamps. “Why me?”

Nathaniel is too tired to think of a lie, and his leg is starting to ache. “I trust you,” he admits grudgingly.

“Alright,” Bartimaeus says evenly. “Then step out of the pentacle.”

His instinct – his first, irrational, overwhelming thought – is to comply; he even shifts his weight slightly in preparation of taking the step. Then his head clears of some of the fog brought on by his exhaustion and he goes utterly still.

 _Demons are very wicked and will hurt you if they can_.

They stare at one another, neither moving save for the rapid rise and fall of Nathaniel’s chest, for what must be a least a minute. “I thought as much,” Bartimaeus eventually says. He sounds, at least to Nathaniel’s ears, more disappointed than smug.

“Just do your job,” Nathaniel hoarsely replies.

* * *

A fortnight passes without incident. Nathaniel begins to wonder if Bartimaeus’ constant jibes about his ego are founded; or perhaps the Night Police have done their job successfully for once.

Farrar has banned him from Westminster after dark. The measure is ostensibly for his safety, but truly Nathaniel suspects it’s so that she can cheerfully shoulder him out of the picture while she climbs the ranks. But regardless of her motives Devereaux insists he listen, and so Nathaniel sits night after night at the smaller, private desk in his room and broods. Here, he has a direct view of the garden he hardly ever enters; it always makes him think back to fleeting, lazy summers as a boy, perched next to the towering imperium of Gladstone, the twisting smell of honeysuckle and Ms Lutyens’ soft perfume.

Tonight, he’s struggling to stay awake. His eyes are glazed, lidded pen tapping against the manuscript before him. Bartimaeus is by the window, watching the ground below, bored but alert. How dull a life djinn must lead, Nathaniel finds himself thinking. How small these squabbles must seem. Perhaps he should heed Bartimaeus’ nagging and send him off to track down the anarchists himself, but that would mean –

Nathaniel looks away. “It’s late,” he says to no-one in particular, and raises a hand when Bartimaeus hops off the windowsill to follow him to his room. “You’d better keep an eye out down here. I had to send Zerach on an errand.”

Alone in his bedroom Nathaniel moves more wearily, falling prey a little more visibly to his misbegotten limp. The radio in the corner of the room chatters incessantly about Makepeace’s latest charade, and Nathaniel resists the urge to roll his eyes at the sound of it, clipping off his cufflinks with slightly more force than warranted.

He sits on the edge of the bed in his nightshirt, staring blankly at the wall. Despite the chill of the night his confinement makes him irritable, restless. His very skin feels hot and stifling. He knows what he wants, but he won’t let himself have it.

 _Yes_ , Nathaniel thinks, _We can love_.

He dismisses Bartimaeus at dawn.

* * *

The war begins. Nathaniel cuts his hair. He stares into the mirror once he’s back from the barber, neck crawling a little from the unexpected chill, and for the first time he truly sees John Mandrake.

He’s done it especially for some soirée of Devereaux’s, celebrating a paltry victory on the other side of the Atlantic in a manner that already reeks of desperation. The security is high enough around the Prime Minister that the Police have begrudgingly allowed him to attend. The Palace of Westminster is alive with light and sound, djinn of all kinds swarming across its rooftops and mingling, camouflaged, in the crowds. The alcohol is copious and free-flowing, and Nathaniel, too young to have a good head for it and with no ally to make sure he knows better, gets drunk.

With Dutch courage buzzing round his bloodstream, he finds he has no desire to hang off Devereaux’s shoulder or flirt with Jane Farrar. Nathaniel stumbles a little awkwardly through the corridors, keeping his head down and moving fast until he finds what he's after: a pentacle with which to summon Bartimaeus.

He waits those long ten seconds, counting under his breath. Bartimaeus appears unceremoniously, first as a sulky-looking panther and then, upon realising who his master is, glaring out warily at Nathaniel with the dark-skinned boy’s eyes. Nathaniel wets his lips, finds his voice, and says, “Promise me you won’t hurt me.”

_The only bad magician is an incompetent one._

Bartimaeus blinks. “You what?”

_What is the definition of incompetence?_

“If I step out of the pentacle,” Nathaniel says. “Promise me.”

Bartimaeus stares at him blankly. “You wouldn’t,” he murmurs. It’s almost inaudible in the vast, echoing room.

_Loss of control._

Nathaniel, drunker than he should be and never one to step back from a dare, takes a firm step towards the edge. “Promise me,” he says, lifting one foot. He can’t read the look on Bartimaeus’ face, but in that moment he doesn’t want to. He’s young and lonely and recklessly drunk, and it’s been a long ten years since he last acted impulsively on instinct.

The floor beneath suddenly bucks and shakes, wooden boards splintering at the force of some impact. Nathaniel is thrown, already unsteady on his feet, landing hard and awkwardly. “Bartimaeus – ” he hears himself shout, and then the djinni is there above him, upturning a thick mahogany desk for them to crouch behind.

They can hear shouting, crashing, footsteps hurtling back and forth outside the door. “Let’s get you out of here,” Bartimaeus mutters, hauling him onto his feet and dragging him out of the room. Smoke fills the corridor; Nathaniel covers his mouth with his sleeve, jabbing his finger the way he thinks he came before. He can’t see anyone he recognises at the foot of the stairs, waitstaff hurrying to save the furniture as two afrits pour water on the flames. It’s not magical, he realises, even as Bartimaeus hauls him past. The place stinks of petrol. One of the waitstaff waves him over; Nathaniel, relieved, hurries towards him.

The man pulls down the cloth across his mouth to speak. “Give me freedom or give me death,” he spits, and for a moment Nathaniel simply doesn’t understand; then Bartimaeus’ fist settles in the scruff of his neck and he’s flying across the hallway, partly from the force of the man’s projectile, thrown haphazard at his feet.

Gradually, the world stops roaring around him. When he opens his eyes he is hunkered beneath Bartimaeus, shaking from the shock. “Don’t look,” Bartimaeus says, and Nathaniel doesn’t, Nathaniel trusts him, Nathaniel focuses on scrambling up off the floor and placing one foot before the other until they’re out on the street and being hustled by the Night Police into a waiting car.

Even as they are duly whisked away Nathaniel can’t stop trembling. He can’t see anything other than the man’s face, twisted in a rictus of hatred and ferocity he finds almost beyond belief. The roads they wind through are alight with sirens, screaming their fury into the sleepy dark, and each shriek makes Nathaniel flinch and burrow a little further down into his seat, heart still beating hard and fast inside his chest.

He’s barely recovered by the time they’re cruising through Belgravia. They pull up to the kerb, and Nathaniel stares up at his bright yellow house feeling rather like he has a target painted on his back. “Is it safe?” he asks, surprised at the steadiness of his voice. The driver, whom Nathaniel only then realises is wearing a Police uniform, nods.

“Come on,” Bartimaeus says beside him, his voice oddly gentle, and gets out to open his door.

It isn’t until Bartimaeus is helping him to sit down onto the edge of his bed that he catches the strange flickered edges of his image, bleeding out to a blue-grey smudge. “You’re injured,” he realises, pressing his hand against Bartimaeus’ chest. They’re so close, Nathaniel thinks. He’s so warm under his palm.

Bartimaeus stares down at him in much the way you would look at a stupid child. “It’s nothing.”

Nathaniel shakes his head. “You’ll heal better there,” he insists, beginning the dismissal.

His face is briefly indecipherable. “Hang on,” Bartimaeus begins, “I – ”

Bartimaeus flickers into nothingness in front of him. Nathaniel undoes his tie, kicks off his shoes, vomits into the wastepaper basket beside his bed, and then gratefully accepts the black wave of unconsciousness that crashes inevitably through him.

* * *

In the morning he is summoned to Richmond. It is perhaps the most promising thread of his career that Devereaux still always trusts and consults him; Nathaniel cannot help but fear how long the gratitude for his three-year-old triumph will last.

He watches the faces of the public as they drift silently by, reading easily their mixture of fear and contempt. Gas leak, they have been told, and any commoner who knows better is threatened with the usual; torture, public humiliation, death. He wonders what Bartimaeus would say. A very small part of him regrets the speed of his actions in dismissing him; his counsel is often insightful, albeit brusque. It seems likely he owes the djinni his life yet again, even if escaping mortal peril for them is practically a regular Tuesday.

Devereaux looks haggard. The war and the years are not treating him well; he’s ceaselessly twitchy and bounding headlong to fat. “They’re everywhere,” Devereaux says hoarsely by way of greeting as Nathaniel steps inside his sprawling, chilly office. “Marmaduke Fry is dead.”

Nathaniel’s eyebrows shoot upwards in shock. He settles calmly into the chair opposite Devereaux’s, arranged either side of the huge desk squatting across a costly Persian rug. “How?”

“It isn’t clear yet,” Devereaux mutters, eyes darting around the room as if they are being watched. His paranoia, though deserved, is increasingly frustrating to stomach. “Something was smuggled into his food. I’m making you Information Minister.”

Nathaniel’s breath catches in his throat. He has dreamt of this for years, every day and every night for as long as he can remember. “An honour, sir,” he says, after taking a moment to steady his voice and calm his nerves. “I will do my utmost to serve you and the Empire.”

“Yes,” Devereaux says, sharp eyes fixed unflinchingly on him. “You will.”

* * *

Someone from Richmond must have telephoned ahead. Nathaniel is received in Whitehall with no little ceremony, a grey-haired, pale-faced man in a sharp suit waiting as he climbs out of his car to take him to his new rooms. The view is shocking, some nondescript backstreet with a mix of ugly red brick and vents, but the plaque on the door reads _John Mandrake: Minister for Information_.

Nathaniel stands alone in the empty room, watching for a time as the thin light slides in through the windows and gently etches the pattern of the muntins on the smooth, hard floor. Then he ruffles his hair, huffs out a breath, finds someone to fetch his breakfast and gets to work.

By noon, a trio of subservient pentacles face a larger one around his desk. Armchairs and a small table have been found and corralled into a reception area by the window, allowing for more comfortable accommodation should a colleague drop by. He’s had the rarer and smarter books from his collection and a handful of basic texts brought from Belgravia to sit on the shelves behind him, and a painting of Gladstone standing grand and dictatorial in the rubble of the Strahov Gate hangs on the bare wall opposite the door.

Nathaniel then forces himself to wait three long days before summoning Bartimaeus. Eventually frustrated by the varying incompetence of his other djinn and having near-exhausted himself with countless fruitless applications of the Systemic Vice, on the fourth day he gives in to the temptation. “About time,” Bartimaeus says somewhat sulkily, almost as soon as he’s materialised. “You look knackered,” he adds cheerily, glancing around the new room with obvious curiosity. Nathaniel ignores him, scribbling down neat, short notes on the papers across his desk before he forgets his train of thought. “Are you finally going to let me go find out who these morons are?”

Nathaniel shakes his head. “New priorities,” he mutters, gesturing towards the brass nameplate on his desk. A late-night gift from Jane Farrar, he has yet to fully give up on checking it for booby traps.

“Oooh, very nice. Is it so you don’t forget who you are?” Nathaniel sighs, pinches the bridge of his nose, and drops his pen down, admitting defeat. “What am I doing here, then?”

Nathaniel yawns widely. “In the room down the hall there are seven boxes containing leaflets,” Nathaniel says, once he’s regained his breath; then he pauses and looks across at Bartimaeus, thoughtful. “How easy do you think it would be to find an elephant?”

Bartimaeus blinks. “You want me to turn into an elephant?”

“Could you do that?” Nathaniel asks unthinkingly, a little over-eager. “No, better not. You’ll just give the commoners lip or trample the marching band.”

Bartimaeus stares at him. “Okay, you’ve lost me.”

“Stand at the seven named stations and hand the leaflets out until they’re all gone,” Nathaniel continues, picking up his pen again. Rhino are a bit risky, he decides, what with the horns. Perhaps he should just forgo the fantastical beasts altogether. “And don’t just chuck them in a bin. I will find out if you do.”

“Listen,” Bartimaeus says slowly, “I know I was grousing about babysitting duty – ”

“Would you rather be over in America?” Nathaniel interrupts tetchily, glaring up at him, and instantly regrets it. There’s a knotted murkiness deep down in the pit of his gut, twisting through his body and riling up his temper, and the sight of Bartimaeus’ scowl only makes it sharper. He thinks awfully it might be guilt; worse still would be embarrassment. He knows full well he acted like a fool, which means Bartimaeus knows it too. He’s surprised he hasn’t mentioned it.

Nathaniel looks away. He stares out at the uninspiring view, the tangled mess of gargling gutters and fading brickwork. “They caught him, by the way,” he adds once he’s regained better control over himself. “The man who threw the bomb.”

For a moment, the weariness of unending age is writ large across Bartimaeus’ face. “There’ll always be another man with another bomb,” he says, his voice quiet and heavy in his throat. To this, Nathaniel has no answer.

They regard one another in silence for a time. Then Nathaniel clears his throat, makes some mark on the upmost page before him. “Report back when you’re done,” Nathaniel replies. “I’ll probably still be here.”

When he next looks up, Bartimaeus has gone.

Nathaniel stares pointlessly at the empty space. It’s hard, very hard, not to think back to five nights before, the two of them standing alone in a Westminster room, separated by nothing but chalk-wrought barriers and empty air –

_You wouldn’t._

_Promise me._

He thinks he might spend the rest of his life wondering what he would have done next.

There’s a sharp rap on the door; Nathaniel jumps, startled. “John, my dear boy!” Makepeace cries, throwing out his arms and waving around a voluminous bunch of yellow roses. “I just heard all about your wonderful promotion. Thought I’d bring you a small bouquet – I always find offices such dreary places without the odd domestic touch.”

John Mandrake summons up a smile and puts down his pen. “How thoughtful, Quentin,” he says, standing from his desk to shake his hand. “Do come in.”


End file.
